PCC

26052008

Yo! Wassup? Bobby G-Force is back with more media studies facts. If you’re studying press regulation in the UK, the PCC is one of those basic concepts you need to know about.

The Press Complaints Commission is the main regulatory body for printed media in the UK. The PCC have a Code of Practice which newspapers and magazines are supposed to keep to. If they don’t, then they are vulnerable to complaints, which may be put to the PCC by members of the public.

These are not laws, but guidelines all UK newspapers and magazines are expected to abide by. This is essentially a self-regulating system, since no paper wants to cough up compensation money, so by keeping to the Code of Practice, they are covering their bases. Thus it is fast and, apparently, efficient.

However, they can ignore guidelines marked with an asterisk if they can demonstrate that they acted in the public interest. For this reason, some have accused the system of being overly lenient and ineffectual, a claim the PCC are quick to argue against.